My new book The PlantPlus Diet Solution: Personalized Nutrition for Life comes out Sept 30, 2014. The 4 year process of discovering that there is no one size fits all diet, and how you can find the foods best suited for you has made me into a veritable diet sleuth. I’m pleased to offer very short blogs to help you build nutritional literacy.

Is that heathy looking food bar a nutritious snack, a meal replacement, or a sugar bomb? On one end of the spectrum there are Kind bars packed with healthful, protein rich, hunger slaying nuts and relatively few sugar carbs. On the other end of the spectrum there are some varieties of Cliff bars that have the same glycemic index as pure sugar.

Before you even look at the protein content, and whether or not the bar is organic or contains artificial ingredients, check out the number of carbs. As I explain in my book The PlantPlus Diet Solution: Personalized Nutrition for Life, refined carbs are a major player in the epidemic of chronic disease that’s bankrupting our nation. Did you know that a child born in 2014 has an average life expectancy of just 69 years? We’re going backwards, and not forwards in terms of our health.

So before you pack a “nutrition” bar that’s actually a candy bar into your kid’s or your own lunch, evaluate the bar using these 4 criteria:

Net carbs 15 or below (net carbs are total carbs minus fiber)

High fiber so that your good gut bacteria get the nourishment they need

Organic if possible, which automatically means nonGMO, or at least made out of whole food ingredients without added chemicals

Check gluten, fat, and salt content to see if these fit your own own personal dietary profile

If simple, all-natural ingredients are what you re looking for, Stachura says it s going to be tough to beat the Larabar Cashew Cookie bar. This bar has just two ingredients cashews and dates and provides 230 calories, 6 grams of protein, and 3 grams of fiber, she says.